


The Smile Man

by onesickmind



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Mature Audiences Only, Post-Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors, Post-Strex Desert Bluffs, Strexcorp, This is not actually a children's story guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:29:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onesickmind/pseuds/onesickmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like a children's story, The Smile Man can only be found by those who wish hard enough. And today, Kevin is searching the streets of post-Strex Desert Bluffs and wishing for him very hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Smile Man

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The Smile Man is not the smiling god. I should have given him a less similar name, but this one was simply perfect.

* * *

 

 

 _Smile Man, dear Smile Man,_  
 _Where did my smile go?_  
 _Smile Man, oh Smile Man,_  
 _Remind me so I know._  
  
\-- Post-Strex Desert Bluffs Children's Rhyme

 

Kevin clutched his broken arm and kept close to the walls and shadows. He was hungry and cold and so very, very empty, but wasn't everyone nowadays? But today he was going to do something about it. He was going to get some relief. Today he was going to see The Smile Man.  
  
Night had fallen, wretched night, sky abandoned again by the sun. Everything was abandoned, now that the smiling god had abandoned them. It had retreated from Night Vale and retreated from Desert Bluffs and retreated from the entire mortal world, and instead of returning things to they way they once were, it just left behind a smoldering shell. Husks were everywhere, businesses nobody staffed, grocery stores nobody stocked, buses nobody ran, power lines nobody repaired, cars nobody drove, houses nobody claimed, while the husks of humans wandered and snapped, scavenging like pigs, having no direction without StrexCorp and its god. There was a new owner, yes, but polite letters mailed to unchecked mailboxes in empty homes asking everyone to return to work largely remained ignored.  
  
Kevin's arm and head and stomach throbbed. How long ago had it been? A month? Two? Three? His mind tumbled whenever he tried to think. Really no thought was useful without the light of the smiling god. He missed it. Everyone missed it. That was why they could find no satisfaction with any of the activities that used to support the function of normal life. That was why they stumbled about starving and unwashed and unbandaged. Kevin's arm had been broken when he was flung from the Night Vale studio, one, two, three months or so ago. He hadn't cared to fix it. Nobody had cared to fix it. The only one who offered any kindness or relief was The Smile Man.  
  
Where was he. Where was he. Every time he found him, he was someplace different. Kevin scrabbled around the alleyways, sniffing and snorting as he sought a distinctive smell. Garbage to his left, and he might have been tempted to root for something to fill his aching tummy if he were not so intent on finding The Smile Man.  
  
And then. There he was.  
  
Carefully picking through a dumpster, trench coat flowing straight to the ground, The Smile Man had finally been found.  
  
Kevin clutched the brick corner and hesitated, suddenly intimidated. The Smile Man was like a unicorn, so elusive and noble and great that it was always hard to believe a wretch like himself could win his presence. What if something was wrong? What if he didn't do it right? What if he blinked and he was gone? What if today was the day The Smile Man, like everything else that had once given his life meaning, abandoned him?  
  
The Smile Man heard him, and straightened, but did not turn to face him.  
  
Kevin took a hard inhalation and scrambled to kneel in the middle of the alley. Panting, eyes wild, stomach hungry, arm hurting, body shivering, being quaking. The Smile Man turned now, and faced him. He smiled. A human smile, a normal smile, nothing like the smile the smiling god once gave them, but it served its purpose in reassuring him that what he sought would come.  
  
The Smile Man held out his hand first, torn glove revealing grimy fingers. Half a sandwich was in it. Kevin scarfed it down with a grateful whine, but did not thank him. The Smile Man did not do these kind things in exchange for gratitude or money.  
  
Then he handed Kevin a ziplock baggie with-- oh, thanks-- soap, deodorant, and toothpaste in it. Kevin tucked it into his shirt. He would probably lose it later.  
  
The Smile Man unzipped his fly.  
  
Kevin immediately dove onto the stained jeans and sucked him off. He could not gulp down his cock fast enough, could not taste the ejaculation hitting the back of his throat soon enough, because, when it was over, he would get what he came for.  
  
The Smile Man petted his hair as he swallowed. Teasing him. Kevin whined and licked his spent cock, pleading. The Smile Man chuckled and said, "All right. Here you go."  
  
He pressed his hand fully on Kevin's head, and gave him his memories.  
  
Sunshine, clean and pure: the memory of it, as perfect as the day it was made. Light in its eternity; days that did not end: the memory preserving, too, the sense of time every Desert Bluffer once felt, that confidence the light would never disappear, that innate circadian sense that the sun would never set. Songs of joyful praises: as if his own throat was now singing, as if his own face was now stretching around a smile. The feeling of being one and whole and shining with the smiling god: this memory, most precious of all. Most uplifting, most exhilarating, most fulfilling, this precise and perfect memory of how it once felt when the smiling god was here and all was light, and light, and light, and light.  
  
Kevin basked in this memory of what glory once was. Perhaps there were others in Desert Bluffs who had The Smile Man's psychic ability, but if so, none of them cared to share it. None of them was so kind.  
  
Shaking, Kevin stood. He did not thank The Smile Man. He did not pay him. The Smile Man did not do these kind things in exchange for gratitude or money.  
  
Kevin clutched his broken arm, smiling, at least, for a little while in the afterglow, and scampered away.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I do not do this for gratitude or money. I do this for comments. Please kneel a moment and leave one below.


End file.
